The Bible's account of King David is so well known
that even people who rarely
crack the Good Book probably
have an idea of his greatness.

David, Scripture says, was such
a superb military leader that he
not only captured Jerusalem but
also went on to make it the seat
of an empire, uniting the
kingdoms of Judah and Israel.
Thus began a glorious era, later
amplified by his son, King
Solomon, whose influence
extended from the borders of
Egypt to the Euphrates River.
Afterward, decline set in.

Yet what if the Bible's account
doesn't fit the evidence in the
ground? What if David's
Jerusalem was really a rural
backwater -- and the greatness
of Israel and Judah lay far in the
future?

Lately, such assertions are
coming from some authorities on Israel's
archaeology, who speak from the perspective of recent finds
from
excavations into the ancient past. "The way I understand the
finds, there
is no evidence whatsoever for a great, united monarchy which
ruled from
Jerusalem over large territories," said Israel Finkelstein,
the director of
the Institute of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University. King
David's
Jerusalem, he added, "was no more than a poor village at the
time."

Statements like these have
earned Finkelstein -- who is leading
excavations at Megiddo, a vitally important site for biblical
archaeology in
northern Israel -- a reputation as a fascinating but
controversial scholar.
His reports from Megiddo that some structures attributed to
Solomon
were actually built after his reign have touched off fierce
debate in Israel.

Within a larger context, what
he says reflects a striking shift now under
way in how a number of archaeologists understand Israel's
past. Their
interpretations challenge some of the Bible's best-known
stories, like
Joshua's conquest of Canaan. Other finds have turned up new
information that supplements Scripture, like what happened to
Jerusalem
after it was captured by the Babylonians 2,600 years ago.

In an interview by e-mail from
the Megiddo site, Finkelstein said that not
long ago, "biblical history dictated the course of research
and
archaeology was used in order to 'prove' the biblical
narrative." In that
way, he said, archaeology took a back seat as a discipline.

"I think that it is time to put
archaeology in the front line," said Finkelstein,
the co-author with Neil Asher Silberman of "The Bible
Unearthed," to be
published in January by The Free Press.

His reference to past practices
can be illustrated by a remark by Yigael
Yadin, an Israeli general who turned to archaeology and who
once spoke
of going into the field with a spade in one hand and the Bible
in the other.

Many archaeologists, both
before and after the founding of the modern
state of Israel, shared a similar approach: seeking direct
evidence for
biblical stories. This outlook was shaped either by their
religious
convictions or their Zionist views, said Amy Dockser Marcus,
the author
of "The View >From Nebo" (Little Brown), a wide-ranging and
engaging
book that describes in detail the shift in archaeology taking
place in
Israel. The problem with that outlook, she said, is that "you
can't help but
go in and look at material and interpret material in a certain
way." And
that, she added, "led to certain mistakes."

In her book, Marcus -- formerly
the Middle East correspondent for The
Wall Street Journal -- notes that Yadin believed he had
unearthed
evidence in the ruins of a place called Hazor that
corroborated the
biblical account of how that Canaanite city had been
destroyed. The
Bible says Hazor fell to invading Israelites led by Joshua.

But these days, she said, an
increasing number of archaeologists have
come to doubt that Joshua's campaign ever took place. Instead,
they
theorize that the ancient Israelites emerged gradually and
peacefully from
among the region's general population -- a demographic
evolution, not a
military invasion. "And that would explain how their pottery
is so similar
to the Canaanites', and their architecture, their script,"
Marcus said.

Finkelstein makes the same
argument: "Archaeology has shown that early
Israel indeed emerged from the local population of late Bronze
Canaan."
In addition, he said, archaeology has turned up no physical
remains to
support the Bible's story of the Exodus: "There is no evidence
for the
wanderings of the Israelites in the Sinai desert."

Asked how such conclusions have
been received in Israel, Finkelstein
replied that they have been producing a "quite strong and
negative"
reaction. But the anger, he said, was coming not from strictly
Orthodox
Jews ("who simply ignore us," he said) but from more secular
Jews who
prize the biblical stories for their symbolic value to modern
Israel. "I think
that the young generation -- at least on the liberal side --
will be more
open and willing to listen," he said.

Still, considerable
disagreement exists among archaeologists on how to
interpret many recent finds. And the new theories about
ancient Israel are
emerging against the backdrop of a raging dispute over the
biblical
"minimalists," a group of scholars who argue that biblical
accounts of
early Israel, including the stories of David and Solomon, have
little, if any,
basis in history.

(This debate was recently
fought out in a lively issue of the Biblical
Archaeology Review, a bimonthly magazine published in
Washington, in
which one of the minimalists, the British scholar Philip
Davies, wrote that
biblical accounts of early Israel were purely theological, not
historical. In
response, a major critic of the minimalists, the American
archaeologist
William Dever, wrote that ample physical evidence pointed to
early
Israelites living in the region's highlands 3,200 years ago,
two centuries
before the time of David and Solomon.)

But if many archaeologists are
far less interested in trying to corroborate
the exact biblical accounts than in how the area's ancient
history fits into
the larger picture of the Middle East, that change of
perspective, Marcus
said, reflects an intellectual shift among the people doing
the digging.
Many current archaeologists, she said, were born in modern
Israel and
don't need a link to the biblical King David to think of
themselves as part
of the Israeli nation: "They see themselves as part of the
broader Middle
East."

Yet while archaeology is
challenging some of the biblical narrative, it is
also adding to it. At Megiddo, Finkelstein said, he found that
the period
2,900 years ago -- the century following the rule of Solomon
-- was a far
more interesting and powerful time for the Kingdom of Israel
than the
Bible says. Another tantalizing discovery, in 1993, turned up
a stele with
an inscription referring to the "House of David," the first
real evidence
that refers to the biblical king. Still other recent
excavations have
provided compelling new evidence about the lives of the
residents of
Jerusalem 2,600 years ago, when they were besieged by the
Babylonian
army, and about the nearby people of ancient Judah who did not
go into
exile in Babylon.

Marcus said that such
discoveries illustrate how archaeology can restore
information "left on the cutting room floor," as it were, by
those who
compiled the biblical narrative. "Archaeology is giving you
back all this
history," she said. "So archaeology doesn't just deconstruct
the Bible, but
reconstructs it."